Are You Man Enough to Skate with Mary?

She's fast, fit, and good with a stick. Sure, Mary McCormack's an actress, but she's also a hockey player. Wanna tussle?

Why would a beautiful actress take up ice hockey--risking injury, disfigurement, and the astonishment and derision of colleagues and friends--when there are so many other beautiful-actress activities like Pilates and aerobics and lettuce nibbling to choose from? To learn the answer to this riddle, consider the consequences of another one of Mary McCor-mack's unconventional career moves:

I ask her about her work as a Slammer Girl.

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"You don't know what a Slammer Girl is?" she says.

"No."

"Slammer Girl. I'd wear cutoff shorts and a bra--well, a halter top, but like a bra, with the midriff showing, you know? And I'd wear a holster with tequila on one side and 7Up on the other, and I'd wear a bandolier with shot glasses, and I'd walk around the bar and go up to a guy and I'd say . . ." and here she smiles and tilts her chin toward her chest so that she is gazing upward. She drops her voice half an octave. "I'd say, 'Say, fella, you want a shot?' "

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McCormack's a talented actress, and I would think so even if I weren't being treated to this private performance of Slammer Girl. I just rented Private Parts last night. In that movie, she portrays radio shock jock Howard Stern's wife. She is gentle and angry, tough and fragile--sometimes alternately, sometimes all at once. She is funny, and sad at times, too. She also played the relentlessly ambitious and sexily pred-atory defense attorney, Justine Appleton, on television's excellent but short-lived Murder One.

But nothing prepared me for Slammer Girl. Right now, on a cold and dreary and gray late afternoon, she is an Oscar-winning Slammer Girl. As Olivier was Hamlet, McCormack is Slammer Girl. Five feet eight inches of soft brown eyes and flawless skin and aesthetically pleasing curves and angles, as well as an otherwise perfect nose with a slight bump one can notice only by looking carefully, courtesy of a pop fly that missed her glove when she was playing baseball as a fifteen-year-old. A triumphant Slammer Girl, equal parts tenderness and fury, passion and commerce.

I marvel.

"You okay?" McCormack asks, stepping for a moment out of character.

"You said it like that?" I ask. "You said"--here I drop my voice an octave--" 'Say, fellas, you want a shot?' "

McCormack laughs. A melody. The gray day suddenly seems not so gray.

"Well, by the end of the night, it was more like"--flat, dismissive, angry--" 'Heyyouwannashot?!' "

Sneering, weary Slammer Girl.

The Slammer Girl turned herself into a Polar Cat last year. She was working on the upcoming film Mystery, Alaska, a quirky drama about a town of hockey-obsessed citizens who end up playing a game against the New York Rangers. McCormack's role is the wife of the town sheriff, played by Russell Crowe. Crowe's character plays hockey, as does virtually every man in the movie. Dur-ing the shoot, on off-hours and off days, the cast and crew relaxed by competing in hockey matches. McCormack figured if she wanted to relax with the guys, she'd better learn to play, too. But first, she had to learn to ice-skate.

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So she signed up for some ice time. After a while, her instincts kicked in. "I learned to trust my edges." Which means she went fast, then faster. And then she ran into a wall and got a concussion, "but it was just a little one." Skating led to hockey, which became a passion, which led her to join the California Polar Cats, an amateur women's hockey team based in Los Angeles.

"I enjoy skating because I really like the speed," she says. "And hockey--I like that because it's sort of rough. The more aggressive you are, the better you are. I'm not the most delicate--I'm not the most graceful person, and I like playing a sport where being not delicate and not graceful is actually a good thing. My agent asks me if I wear a mouth guard and helmet," she says, "but I think scars and bruises are really cool."

I ask about fighting--about bench-clearing brawls when the other team might want a piece of the movie star.

"Yeah, I'd throw Coopers," she says, laughing. (Cooper being a brand of hockey gloves, which any defenseman worth his extensive bridgework knows he must discard before a fight.)

I try to envision this Slammer-Girl-turned-Polar-Cat throwing Coopers. Perhaps she notices my confusion.

"Really," she says, "I'm just a simple girl from Jersey."

Which makes sense, if you remember that Bruce Springsteen started life as just a simple boy from Jersey.

Since Murder One and Private Parts, this simple Jersey girl has appeared as a doomed astronaut in Deep Impact and has finished or is working on the following 1999 films: True Crime, directed by and starring Clint Eastwood; The Big Tease, a comedy in which she plays the president of the worldwide hairdressing federation; and Other Voices, a film that also stars Campbell Scott and is, according to McCormack, about a couple in a troubled marriage who are "trying to reinvent their relationship."

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To stay fit for these roles, and for her recent Broadway debut as Sally Bowles in Cabaret--and "because I feel better when I'm in shape"--McCormack, in a workout most Esquire readers would do well to follow, runs three to five miles four times a week and lifts weights for thirty minutes four times a week. She also stretches religiously and even takes a yoga class or two when her schedule permits. But when it comes to dieting, this lifelong jock--she played lacrosse and field hockey in high school--is less attentive. "I eat anything," she says, "especially sweets. Chocolate, cookies, and I love mint-chip ice cream." It's just one of the many contradictions in this simple Jersey girl who is really anything but.

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She wants love and romance, but "I've done an informal, anecdotal survey about marriage, and I've found no evidence that it brings happiness." She lives in the rarefied air of Hollywood, but she is a lifelong New York Rangers fan and a great believer in the wisdom of professional athletes.

And she rails against the "reductive writing" that creates the cartoonish "woman who has six degrees and is an astrophysicist and specializes in the biology of Mars but can't really make a decision until a man comes along and unlocks the love in her." But the next second, she laughs and vows not to be so analytical or grim. "If you overthink it, it implies there's some importance to it." She pauses a beat and then jokes, "So I'm joining the cast of Baywatch next season."

And while she is funny and ambitious and beautiful--the most intense Slammer Girl you will ever meet--she is also a realist.

"Did the Slammer Girl job teach you anything?" I ask.

"Yes, it did. It taught me how to laugh at people's jokes that aren't funny. It taught me how not to slap someone when I wanted to. A job like that, it taught me how to take pleasure in little, little things."

But there is one more question that I must ask--a deeply personal query that I proffer because I know the answer will help me (and you, speed-loving reader) answer just one riddle. She laughs. A melody.

"The secret to learning to skate better is to wear pads. As soon as I put on pads, my learning rate tripled."

No Ice? No Excuse.

Maybe you don't live near a rink. Plus, it's March, so the ice has pretty much melted. Or maybe you think ice-skating is just too . . . Canadian. No problem. You can still get good exercise with in-line skating.

The Equipment

To get an efficient, tough workout--without the ice--you'll need solid in-line gear, like what you see here. How's that? You also want to throw Coopers? Have a gander at the roller-hockey stuff, friend.

SKATES: A solid boot has wheels that roll easily and a chassis (the thing that holds the wheels) that lets you change the gunked-up bearings without a mechanic's arsenal. That's an apt description of the quietly styled Rollerblade e 4.4 ($280; call 800-328-0171). It has a light, rigid aluminum chassis for maximum energy transfer, ski-boot-style bindings for easy on-and-off, and plenty of vents to keep your dogs cool.

PROTECTION: Fool. That's what you think of a guy who rides a bike without a helmet. But skating without headgear is just as dangerous. Which is why you gotta save your skull with a hat, like Rollerblade's recreation helmet ($40), which is lightweight, cool, and not uncool looking. Also, guard the rest of your parts--such as your elbows, knees, and wrists--with pads. Rollerblade's Urban Gear three-pack ($30) is good, basic armor that's surprisingly unobtrusive.

HOCKEY GEAR: If you get really serious, slap a roller-hockey ball around--and get more gear. Start with a stiffer boot, like Bauer's graphite-reinforced Vapor 4 hockey skate ($549; 800-622-2189), and a strong stick, like Easton's Z-Bubble ($130; 800-347-3901). It's reinforced at the hosel (Canadian for the bend), where most sticks break. You'll also need gloves; slide your paws into some Easton Z-Air mitts ($150), which flex wonderfully at the wrists for all-important stick agility.

If you in-line skate--or even run--you'll be fit, and injury prone. Just ask Eddy Matzger, the number-one-ranked American in-line skater, whose leg and back maladies inspired this ten-minute stretching and strengthening routine (illustrated above). Performed regularly (every other day at minimum), these will strengthen your back, shoulders, and chest and make your hips looser and your knees more stable. Also, you'll increase the elasticity of several key leg muscles. All that equals increased stamina and reduced chances of muscle and tendon strain.

Do three sets of ten per leg for the first two exercises.

1.Seated extension: Sit. Raise and lower one leg from the knee, taking ten seconds for each direction. Too easy? Do it wearing your skates.

2.One-legged squat: Stand on one foot. For a count of five, bend the supporting leg to almost 90 degrees. Straighten.

The next three stances are derived from yoga. Hold each for at least thirty seconds. Repeat first two for opposite side.

4. Warrior: Stand with feet parallel at least one yard apart, arms extended to the sides. Pivot right foot 90 degrees to the right, and rotate hips to face right. Raise your arms overhead, palms together. Bend your right knee in a line over your foot until your thigh is parallel with the ground. Arch your torso back, with your chest high.

5. Triangle Pose: Begin as in the warrior pose. Pivot left foot 90 degrees, but keep hips and torso facing front throughout. Keeping your arms in a straight line, hinge at waist and grab your left ankle with your left hand.

6. Downward Dog: Start on all fours, hands shoulder-width apart. Curl toes under and straighten legs to form an inverted V. Pull rear up and push heels down to stretch the legs, and push the torso down--think hinging jackknife.